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The link if anyone's interested: https://www.udacity.com/ It's $200/month. If you have a lot of time on your hands and can work through as many courses as you want for a fixed $200/month fee, then it's a *very* good price.

No certificate, but maybe we should have that conversation... is a certificate worth it? How often do you show your certificate? In my professional experience I've never encountered a situation where certificates were relevant. Degrees barely are.

I'd say pay the fee if you want to help support the program, as a sort of donation.

Problem I found is the certificates want me to type in drivers license number, upload photographs of myself, and turn on a web cam when taking tests. I don't mind paying a bit to help support these programs, but paying requires privacy invasion, so I never pay.

Udacity has a mixture of free classes and classes that you take after paying the $200/month, some part of a nanodegree program and some not. The nanodegree programs cost $200/month and offer a certificate, which is probably worth nothing as a credential.

Before you dismiss being an iOS developer, think about how many applications have been and are being written for Windows. The vast majority of these are custom for a specific business. The same thing holds for iOS: The money for iOS development is from businesses wanting a custom app for internal use.

Before you dismiss being an iOS developer, think about how many applications have been and are being written for Windows. The vast majority of these are custom for a specific business. The same thing holds for iOS: The money for iOS development is from businesses wanting a custom app for internal use.

Before you dismiss being an iOS developer, think about how many applications have been and are being written for Windows. The vast majority of these are custom for a specific business. The same thing holds for iOS: The money for iOS development is from businesses wanting a custom app for internal use.

Even internal apps are being built in India. Ask me how I know.

What have you seen? What's your company doing?

What about the issue of a company wanting to keep control over their proprietary processes: i.e. for security and not to disclose business practices that the offshorers might steal and repurpose for work done for a company's competitors?

Also, why do offshorers have an advantage for generalized apps, or apps that can be easily customized for a business's needs? American companies can develop apps as well as foreign companies can. The competition might result in a lower price, but what else is new in the era of global capitalism?

Before you dismiss being an iOS developer, think about how many applications have been and are being written for Windows. The vast majority of these are custom for a specific business. The same thing holds for iOS: The money for iOS development is from businesses wanting a custom app for internal use.

Even internal apps are being built in India. Ask me how I know.

What have you seen? What's your company doing?

What about the issue of a company wanting to keep control over their proprietary processes: i.e. for security and not to disclose business practices that the offshorers might steal and repurpose for work done for a company's competitors?

Also, why do offshorers have an advantage for generalized apps, or apps that can be easily customized for a business's needs? American companies can develop apps as well as foreign companies can. The competition might result in a lower price, but what else is new in the era of global capitalism?

I cant get into the exact specifics because it would reveal who they are but I can say that the apps are extremely proprietary because of the nature of their business as its a very regulated industry. The apps are specific to products they sell and how they do business.

With that being said all the vendors have non-disclosure agreements in place. But does it really matter? I have heard people bring up the proprietary process stuff and technology which is 100% true. They just say that they have an NDA in place and there is nothing to be concerned about. And the dialog ends just like that.

As an example the thing we are working on now is very critical to the companies processes as related to their regulatory stuff. Anyway all the development has been sent overseas. Every last bit of it. The only parts in the US are me, the BA, the architect and the test lead. All the development and testing is overseas. And they have a PM and architect over there.

I can tell you its purely about cost. Say an American company will quote a price of $100K for an app, Indian companies will do it for $15-20K. I am just using that as example to show the disparity in costs. Will the analysts and project managers have to spell every single thing out in infinite detail - YEP. But they dont care.

The last app we built - the only part of the app that was built in the USA was the graphics. We had a graphics designer that did all the graphics after the BA's did the wireframes. Everything else was sent to India.

I can tell you this - non-Indian programmers are now an anomaly. It might be different in other parts of the country but here in NJ, if you are not Indian you are the odd man out.

This field is dead unless you work for something like Apple and Google. Its been discussed before there are 2 sides to the IT field now - there are internal IT people which as a career is finished and than there are Silicone Valley crowd where its all wet kisses and sunshine.

^Thanks for the info. Scary, but makes sense. What a turn of events in the IT field.

I dont mean to be negative but I have seen this same exact thing in multiple industries:

telecompharmainsurancebankingutilities

Quick story - a few years ago I had an interview at one of NJ's 2 public utility companies. The job was perm for a mobile architect. Anyway after I got there the place was a morgue. There was no one around. They put me through 4 separate grueling rounds of interviews - each round was like 3-4 HOURS of behavioral interview questions. It was horrible.

Anyway at one point they asked if I had any questions - I said yes, I have 2 questions: 1. When was the last time you did layoffs and 2. Where are all the people.

They all looked at each other and I could tell they did want to tell me. They finally said that the last round of layoffs was like 3 months ago and the reason no one is here is that all the jobs have been sent to India. The only stuff that was left was architects, PMs, BAs, financial people and the higher ups. Everything else was gone.

It got me thinking - here we have a public utility company with a captive market, captive customers and they are sending the jobs overseas as well....

After spending lots of time focusing on the technical, I have come to believe that the money is in service.

What I mean is that if you want to make money off of software development, you have to have a service mentality: I need to spend time taking care of the customer's fears and being physically present for them. The analogy is that of the plumber. If the plumber could fix your problems without visiting your house, that job would be outsourced to the cheapest Indians. But, because the plumber visits your place, he gets to charge $150/hour.

This is not about the "contract labor" (1099) market. That market is decimated by Indians.